Lincoln Bishop University has been educating students for over 160 years in the heart of historic Lincoln. Consistently ranked among the best in the UK for teaching quality, student satisfaction, and student support, it outperforms institutions many times its size when it comes to the experience it delivers.
Cursor has been the university's digital development partner since 2019, having re-platformed their website from WordPress to Craft CMS and subsequently built their Digital Open Days system during the Covid-19 pandemic. This latest project marks a significant new chapter in that relationship.
Like most universities, Lincoln Bishop had long relied on a printed prospectus as a primary recruitment tool. Once sent to print, that document was fixed - impossible to update, expensive to revise, and unable to tell the recruitment team anything about whether prospective students were actually engaging with it.
Today's prospective students expect something different: video content that brings the campus experience to life, easy sharing with parents and friends, and the reassurance that what they're reading is current. A digital prospectus offered all of this along with the opportunity to understand, for the first time, exactly which sections and courses were generating the most interest.
The challenge was to deliver this before the key open days season, within Lincoln Bishop's existing infrastructure, and without asking the marketing team to learn an entirely new platform.
Rather than recommending an off-the-shelf SaaS platform which would mean ongoing subscription fees, restricted design control, and content living outside the university's own systems, we proposed building the digital prospectus directly within Lincoln Bishop's existing Craft CMS setup, using a multisite configuration. This meant no new systems for the team to learn, full design control, and complete ownership of content and data from day one.
An interactive magazine-style experience
The prospectus was designed to feel like a digital magazine rather than a website. Each section was designed with a distinct visual identity and interactive components that go well beyond anything a printed brochure or PDF could offer. In addition, each section has its own URL, making it straightforward to share a specific page directly with a parent or teacher.
Two tailored editions
We built separate undergraduate and postgraduate versions of the prospectus, ensuring each audience sees only the courses and content most relevant to them. Both editions share the same design system and brand identity while allowing Lincoln Bishop to tailor their messaging to the distinct needs and concerns of each group.
Fourteen sections, covering everything that matters
The undergraduate prospectus launched with 14 sections covering the full recruitment journey, with the Courses section going further than a simple listing. Students can search across all 115 courses by keyword and filter by course method, type, and award - making it straightforward to find a relevant programme quickly without leaving the prospectus.
Queries are eager-loaded to keep the experience fast and responsive, behaving more like a product search than a typical university course finder. This improvement over the existing search on Lincoln Bishop's main website has proved significant enough that there are plans to roll the same approach into the wider site. Each result links through to the full course detail on the main Lincoln Bishop website, a deliberate scoping decision that kept the initial build focused and deliverable on time while avoiding duplication of content already well-maintained elsewhere.
Performance by design
Speed was treated as a feature, not an afterthought. The prospectus is optimised to load quickly on mobile over mobile data, acknowledging the context in which most prospective students will encounter it, particularly during open days. Every element from image formats to asset loading was considered with that scenario in mind.
Accessibility
As a public sector body, Lincoln Bishop University is legally required to meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards. The prospectus was built with accessibility as a core consideration throughout, from semantic HTML and keyboard navigation to colour contrast and screen reader compatibility, with the aim of meeting the standard in full.
Quality assurance
A comprehensive suite of automated tests using Cypress covered a wide range of user interactions and critical site functionality. Ongoing, this gives the development team confidence when making updates and ensures the prospectus will continue to behave correctly across browsers and devices as content evolves.
Built for updates, not reprints
Because every page is a Craft CMS entry managed independently, the university’s marketing team can update content in minutes rather than waiting weeks for a reprint. It utilises the same design system used across the main Lincoln Bishop website ensuring complete brand consistency throughout.
Analytics and HubSpot tracking
Google Analytics and HubSpot tracking were integrated from the outset, giving the recruitment team visibility into which sections attract the most interest, where students spend the most time, and how prospectus engagement maps to open day registrations and applications.
A greener prospectus
Moving to digital has also delivered a significant environmental saving, eliminating the carbon footprint of a full print run in a way that resonates with today's prospective students. A decision that's as practical as it is principled and one that sits comfortably alongside the university's broader commitment to sustainability.
Content readiness
The most significant risk on a project like this is always content, not technology. With a firm pre-open-days deadline and limited development days available across the project window, it was essential to get Lincoln Bishop's content team engaged early, establish clear interim deadlines for copy, imagery and video, and run a content audit upfront to identify what could be migrated from the existing prospectus and website versus what needed to be created fresh.
Keeping scope tight
The decision to link through to the main website for individual course detail, rather than replicating it within the prospectus, was a deliberate and pragmatic one. It allowed the team to deliver a polished, fully tested 14-section experience on time, while leaving the door open for course-level pages as a future enhancement.
Lincoln Bishop University now has a digital prospectus that reflects the quality and ambition of the institution it represents. Prospective students can explore courses, campus life, accommodation, fees and the application process on any device, with an experience that feels modern, interactive, and entirely on-brand.
For the first time, the recruitment team has real visibility into how students engage with prospectus content: which sections attract the most time, which content students return to, and where they move on to apply. Content can be updated the moment it changes - no reprints, no out-of-date PDFs in circulation after clearing, no separate system to log in to. The foundation is also firmly in place for future enhancements, allowing the digital prospectus to evolve beyond its initial launch.
